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Tuesday, 27 November 2012

What is the 'patchwork' challenge?

The birding fraternity has seen a shift in
attitudes recently, with many birders turning their attention from twitching
towards rarity finding.As a result,
there also seems to have been an upturn in the profile
watching a local patch.

The advantages of watching a local patch
are obvious. Low fuel costs and travel time aside, great pleasure can be
derived from getting to learn a place inside out, observing how the seasons
change, and getting value from common species that otherwise wouldn’t get a
second glance. Throw in the potential for the odd rare bird or scarcity and to
me, you have a really exciting, involving way to enjoy your birding.

So what could enhance the patch watchers
enjoyment a little? Well, perhaps adding an element of competition would do the
trick. We’re a competitive bunch, us birders, both with our peers and
‘internally’ as well. We like a gloat, we like to add things to lists, and we
like to know what the numbers are. So why not see if we can add a little
friendly competition to our patch birding.

There is one immediate problem with this –
how do you compare one patch with another? The birder who ‘patches’ at Minsmere
is going to see a lot more species than the birder who patches at some inland
woodland. Also, how do you rate the species seen? It’s hardly fair that the
hard earned Radde’s warbler earns the same number of points as a meadow pipit.
And it’s a bit unfair that a self found Radde’s would score the same as one
that you’d twitched.I think coming up
with an absolutely bulletproof way of scoring a competition like this is
impossible – there are too many variables, but after some long and hard
thought, we’ve come up with a scoring system (actually a combination of two
existing scoring systems with a few tweaks) that we believe is suitable.

So bear with me while I go through the
rules and the scoring system….it might get a bit dull…

The
scores

As I alluded to earlier, the score each
bird earns will be related to its rarity. We have used the ‘Birdguides’ rarity
categories, which gives every species on the BOU British list a rarity value
(common, local, scarce, rare and mega). These categories will be scored 1 – 5
respectively. Those species categorized as scarce or rarer, if self found, will
have their points doubled, so, for example, the Radde’s warbler mentioned above
will be worth 3 points if you twitch it, but 6 if you find it yourself.

Again though, this definitely seems to
favour Minsmere over Manchester, and a patcher working Fair Isle could well
score an awful lot of points! But to level the playing field, to even out
‘patch quality’, we propose a scoring system that relates the observers’ score
to the tallies run up over previous years. This makes your score representative
of how good your year has been on your patch. To do this, all you need to
do is present your score as a percentage of your last years score – and as the
competition goes on, as a percentage of the average of the previous two years
scores.

This may seem complex but there is a
reason. We’ve trialed the points scoring system, and for the most part it is
fine. However, we noticed that there could be a little contention regarding the
value of some birds. A kittiwake, for example, is worth 2 points. A coastal
observer will probably see kittiwake every year, a lot, whereas someone based
inland would be very pleased when a kitti graced their patch. Using our system,
the points gained for the kittiwake by the inland birder (in this instance)
will have more impact on their overall score than the kittiwake scored every
year by a coastal observer.

For people who are new to
patch listing or have had a larger patch in the past we will run a league for
point’s only patches for the first year. If there are enough competitors we may
even break these down into fairer leagues e.g. inland league, east coast league
etc. Thereafter in the second year everyone can be included in the main
percentage league using their score from year one.

Simple? Well, no…but it certainly goes a
fair way towards leveling the playing field – after all, this is a competition
between patchers and not patches. To make things simple, we will
send each competitor a spreadsheet that keeps a tally of their score as they
add species to it.

The
rules

The rules are pretty simple. Your patch
must have an area of 3 km2 maximum (3 x 1km squares). It doesn’t
have to be rectangular, or comply with any OS grid lines; it can be any shape you
want it to be. It just has to be 3 km2 or smaller.

The birds that contribute to your score
must be within the boundaries of the patch (i.e. you don’t need to be), or,
seen or heard while you are on your patch. So, heard only birds count, distant
passing seabirds count, flyovers count, and birds flushed from the patch while
you approach your site count.

Unfortunately, to keep things in the here
and now, we won’t be able to wait for rarities committees to verify records of
rare birds. I should imagine the majority of rare or mega birds will be of
suitable interest to other birders to attract some ‘external verification’, as
will many of the scarce birds. However, more than one observer will see not
everything so we’ll just have to rely on the honesty of the competitors.

But we’re an honest lot aren’t we, so that
wont be a problem!If you're interested in taking part in the challenge email us on patchworkchallenge@gmail.com if you have any more questions or with your patch boundaries etc.

"The birding fraternity has seen a shift in attitudes recently, with many birders turning their attention from twitching towards rarity finding. As a result, there also seems to have been an upturn in the profile watching a local patch"- So who found the rarities before? You'll find patchworking isn't a new thing. Most good birders when there was nothing to twitch always fell back on their local patch.

Although there are certainly birders who "fall back on their local patch" because there's nothing to twitch - and probably a lot who just fall into their armchairs instead - more and more people do currently seem to be viewing their patch as the lifeblood of their birding - as I think it ought to be. It teaches you about the interactions of birds, places and people: sociological, historical and ecological and it gets under your skin as you come to know it intimately. It's great to read about people getting out and finding their own birds rather than spending every weekend chasing whatever is on the black box. Add in the reduction in time needed, the reduced emissions, reduced expense and more time spent out birding, it seems like an all round winner.

Of course, if your patch is a bird-free shithole, I fully see the need to get in the car now and again and see what's about. Or move house.

Whilst I wholeheartedly agree with most of what you say Tim [the 'move house' bit is all very well but I've yet to convince the BTO to relocate to the Waxham Triangle, and I'd sooner be able to walk to work ;) ], I also think Mark Lawlor's 'Final Word' in the BirdWatch Dec 2012 makes an equally valid point. Essentially, variety is the spice of life / don't forsake other (local?) hotspots solely for the sake of 'sticking to patch'.

The patchwork challenge is a great idea and I'm currently drawing ever more weird and wonderful shapes on the map to try to keep my local patch (Stornoway) within the 3 sq km limit.

I've got a nit-picking question about the rules: If you twitch a species on your patch and then, later in the year, find a different individual of the same species, can you then award yourself the self-found bonus? Not that there's much twitching in Stornoway, with hardly any birders, but you never know...

Ok, I have signed up for this and I shall be flying the flag for the county of Wiltshire. My patch on the North Wessex Downs isn't exactly renowned for being a birders paradise, but I love it and it's all I've got.

I'm going to come right out with a couple of bold predictions; firstly, I won't be logging any ultra-rare waders; secondly, I'm probably going to come last. Still, it should be fun and I'll give it my best shot.

Hi all, was planning on joining this years patch challenge but I was wondering whether I would need to include the area of water over which seabirds will pass to count them. Would I have to dedicate some of my 3km2 limit to an area offshore in which I can count the flypast seabirds or can I count birds seen simply from my patch on land?

This was answered further up the list mate, you can count seabirds that you see when standing on your patch. So if you have Pendennis Head as your patch you can count anything that flies past on the sea as long as you are standing in your patch boundaries.

Thanks for setting up this site and challenge.Can you confirm the mapping rule? The examples of PWC maps I've seen are blob-shaped but surely there is a big advantage to having ribbon-shaped areas. For example, a two metre wide site following a coastal path that leads through miles and miles of varied habitat and multiple good vantage points would give an advantage over someone with a blob or square-shaped site.

Dave I was thinking exactly that - if I make my ribbon really narrow I can extend my patch along the whole of the south shore of the Burry Inlet and out to Burry Holms! - so, is there a minimum ribbon width?

At the moment there is no minimum ribbon width - which would be a good idea to minimise the long, and for want of a much better word, stringy patches! However, it needs a bit more thought - my girdle ness patch is definitely in the 'blob' category - but there are bits (corners, for example) that probably wouldn't meet a minimum width criteria. I think the choice may fall down to choosing between a pretty complex and time consuming metric for patch width, or relying on the better nature of contestants not to take the micky...We'll give it some thought and would welcome other suggestions. FYI chaps, our Facebook page may be the best place to discuss things like this!

Perhaps stating a minimum length or width would get around this - my local patch is the 20km length of the south shore of the Burry Inlet which would be nice to have, but perhaps a fair length would be a 300m wide 10km length?

I think this is a cheat - locate tundra Beans in flock 500-1000m from patch boundary, return to patch, climb tree, scan flock but can't see legs, return to flock confirm Beans still present? I assume by the rules to count you have to be able to ID the bird? Perhaps they'll fly over the house tmrw...

Tried again today, Bean and Whitefront still present in c. 2600 Pinks 300-400m from patch edge but still could not see them from my tree, entire flock then flushed by farmer, they must have been calling in the din - but drowned out by Pinks...